Perhaps it was with unreasonably great expectations that I laid down my money to see Cadillac Records, the Hollywood take on the story of the Chess label. It’s not as if I expected the film to imitate life exactly, but I hadn’t anticipated just how unlike the generally known story it would be. Call me a pedant, but let’s just say it was a little like going to see a movie based on the classic literature of the Greek and Roman civilizations or the Bible that got all the familiar stories wrong, which is where this month’s Origin steps in—just for the record.

Chess Records, founded by brothers Phil and Leonard Chess, was, of course, home to Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Howlin’ Wolf, and Etta James, among other groundbreakers in 1950s blues and rock. But neither Bo Diddley nor Phil Chess are portrayed in Cadillac Records. Regarding the omission of his uncle Phil, Marshall Chess told NPR, “It’s like you make a movie about flight with the Wright brothers and you cut out one brother.” Agreed, though, no doubt, the story of two average looking Polish-Jewish immigrants made good was a harder sell than a mixed-race romance between the boss and one of his artists. Marshall maintains the onscreen affair between his father Leonard and Etta James never happened. Nor did a romance with Chess rate in Etta’s tell-all, Rage to Survive, which, in a funny coincidence, I read last year. And yet, one look at the trailer and the poster for the film and you’d think that theirs was an affair to remember.

What we have here is the story of rock as perceived by some Hollywood geniuses who make decisions based on criteria like star power and market research on subjects like the stars teenagers think are hot, which in this case is Beyoncé and Adrien Brody. But when the story with the cultural significance of the birth of rock ‘n’ roll crosses the line into pure fabrication, it unravels the legacy of an important music institution as well as a founding label. Lack of integrity is not a good moviemaking policy, if you ask me, though rarely do the people who make these decisions consult me or seemingly anyone else on these matters. Had they done so, they would’ve found the story of Chess needed very little alteration: It’s as powerful and dirty and off-the-hook as they come.

So why portray king bee Muddy Waters as a weak-willed pawn in the game, and his harp player Little Walter as a cold-blooded killer? I would hope in the case of Little Walter, that the facts were checked and checked again before committing that act to celluloid. And how Willie Dixon was turned from one of Chess’ most vocal critics into the film’s benign uncle of a narrator is anyone’s guess. The intense rivalry portrayed between Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf? Not sure it was quite so intense. The timeline on the meeting between Etta James and Minnesota Fats? Way off. The recording sessions, tours, and the musician’s contributions to tracks are so jumbled that I must now suspend any further attempts to uncoil the foolishness, but not before I take on one particularly crazy-ass scene (which, for the record, I think would’ve been better played by Queen Latifah as Etta James, but again, the casting department neglected to get my opinion, so she’s played by Beyoncé).

James/Beyoncé is in the Chess studio in Chicago preparing to record “I’d Rather Go Blind”, a song that one day will be among her best-loved numbers. The year? We’re not quite clear, because the set, as well as the costumes, have remained locked in time at about 1962. But whenever it’s supposed to be, Etta’s eyes fill with tears as she watches Leonard Chess (Adrien Brody), with whom she is supposedly in love, turn his back on her and walk out that door, just like in a song (though according to James in her autobiography, it was Chess who cried when he heard the song).

Granted, James was Leonard’s first and favorite female artist on a roster that would come to include her friend Sugar Pie DeSanto, as well as Irma Thomas, Fontella Bass, and Koko Taylor. There was indeed a fondness between them, though the nature of their relationship remains known only to them. But unlike the story would have you believe, there was no shortage of men and romance in James’ life. “I’d Rather Go Blind” is partly credited to Billy Foster, her boyfriend at the time, as well as her friend Ellington Jordan, whom she was visiting in prison when she got the idea for the song.

“I’d Rather Go Blind” marked James’ return to the studio following drug troubles in 1967, a time when the old-time sound on which Chess made its name had made way for soul. By then, Chess artists were up against the soul power of giants likes Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, and Atlantic Records. In a last bid to compete, Leonard took operations down South to Muscle Shoals and FAME Studios, which is where “I’d Rather Go Blind” was recorded, though according to James, it was the A-side, “Tell Mama”, that Chess truly favored (and in addition to “At Last”, “Tell Mama” would become the song for which she would become most known, in part, thanks to a show-stopping version by Janis Joplin). Both “I’d Rather Go Blind” and “Tell Mama” were also included on the 1968 Chess album, Tell Mama.

In the interest of time, it’s understandable how these recording notes weren’t fleshed out in the film. But in the interest of history, it’s important to note that Chess’ vision hadn’t included the development of soul and its relationship to the black power movements. His old-world worldview didn’t fit with the times, though Muddy Waters continued to expand and found an audience in ’68 with his psychedelic experiment, Electric Mud. And yet, some potentially meaty material is traded in for a short scene of Chess trashing his office in a fit of rage followed by a heart attack. In reality, Chess died two years later in 1969, but who’s counting at this point? The film ends with Waters and Dixon visiting England in 1967, but by then I was too confused to care about specifics, I just knew they weren’t right.

Cadillac Records may’ve attempted to transcend matters like time and space, style and substance, but if you know anything about America’s music and its history, it fails on pretty much every level but one or two. To its credit, the film alludes to music business realities like racism, payola, and sketchy accounting, the conditions under which businessmen have prospered and entertainers have suffered for more than 50 years.

In further cheery news, Etta James as well as Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Little Walter have all had their say in books of their own or about them, which are available at most public libraries. And the story of Chess also gets a good going over in Spinning Blues Into Gold: The Chess Brothers and the Legendary Chess Records, a comprehensive and award-winning book by Nadine Cohodas. Though if you crave further explanation, you’ll find it on those classic Chess sides, and you don’t need good eyesight to hear the truth: Real music doesn’t lie and the songs of Chess rarely hit a false note. 

Watch: Etta James and Dr. John, “I’d Rather Go Blind (Blind Girl)“  [at youtube.com]

Read more from Origin of Song:

I Got My Radio On

A Change Is Gonna Come

I Don’t Want to Grow Up